1949 Nicouline Pictorial Gastronomic Map of Italy

Celebrating Italian cuisine.

This is a 1949 Vsevolode Nicouline pictorial gastronomic map of Italy. The map celebrates Italian culinary tradition with pictorial illustrations of delicacies filling the peninsula, Sicily, and Sardinia.

A Closer Look

Grapes, lemons, oranges, bread, and numerous types of salumi and cheese fill the map alongside bottles of Italian wine, liquor, and beer. A wild boar runs through Sardinia while a pig bounds atop a fork near the Italian border. Fish appear from Venice to Sicily. Banners label cities and towns across the country. In the Tyrrhenian Sea, a mermaid carries a platter of seafood aloft as if offering it to Italy.

Publication History and Census

This map was created by Vsevolode Nicouline and published by Giovanni de Agostini in 1949. It is not cataloged in OCLC, and we have found only a handful of instances when it has appeared on the private market.

Cartographers

Vsevolode Nicouline (Vsevolod Petrovič Nikulin, Всеволод Петрович Нікулін; November 27, 1890 - July 18, 1968) was a Russian-born Italian artist, illustrator, and set designer. Born in Mykolaiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to an Orthodox priest, he attended the Odessa Art College (now the Grekov Odessa Art School), where he studied with Italian sculptors Luigi Iorini and Giuseppe Mormone, before enrolling at the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1917. The Russian Revolution derailed Nicouline's studies, and he became an officer in the White Russian forces. As the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand, he fled to Constantinople and then to Genoa. Soon afterwards, he began to publish woodcuts that were heavily inspired by Japanese woodblock printing and took on Japanese themes (such as samurai and Japanese folk tales). He then moved on to watercolors and then towards illustrations, focusing on mythologies of various cultures. Later in his career, his illustrations appeared in popular formats, such as fiction, magazines, and children's literature.   Further Details...

Giovanni De Agostini (August 23, 1863 - November 21, 1941) was an Italian cartographer and publisher. In 1901, he founded the Istituto Geografico Italiano del dott. G. De Agostini and C. in Rome. In addition to school atlases, the group published the Calendario Atlante de Agostini, a compact yearbook, calendar, and atlas, which was highly successful. In 1908, the company moved to Novara in Piemonte, in large part to be closer to Germany, from where they sourced their equipment. In 1919, the company was acquired by Marco Boroli and Cesare Rossi and began to expand more rapidly, including the installation of Italy's first rotogravure printing press and the publication of the esteemed Grande Atlante Geografico, though it retained its name and identity. After De Agostini's death, the Istituto geografico and publishing house he had founded continued to use his name. His younger brother, Alberto Maria de Agostini (1883 - 1960) was a Salesian priest and polymath who lived most of his life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, contributing greatly to the geographic and ethnographic knowledge of the region. Giovanni's son, Federico De Agostini (1905 - 1960), began working at the firm in 1927 and was known for his own discoveries in South America as well as several important maps, textbooks, encyclopedias, and murals, including some in Arabic. Another of Agostini's sons, Giovanni De Agostini, Jr., became especially adept at speaking and reading Arabic and was an expert on the history of Islam. In the years after the Second World War, the company retained the name Agostini but was fully taken over by the Boroli family. It diversified into publishing school textbooks, books on art, children's books, encyclopedias, and more. In subsequent decades, it became one of the best known Italian publishing houses and expanded throughout Europe to become a multifaceted international holding company with publishing, cartographic, arts, media, gaming, and asset management subsidiaries.   Further Details...

Condition

Good. Backed on archival tissue for stability. Areas of reinstatement along bottom border with no loss. Area of infill to upper border.